Washington Post
A Moment to End the Repression --
Unless the World Retreats Into Silence
By Desmond Tutu and Madeleine
Albright
Thursday, March 29, 2007; Page A19
Zimbabwe, long plagued
by the repressive leadership of President Robert
Mugabe, has reached the
point of crisis. Leaders of the democratic
opposition were arrested and
beaten, and one was killed, while attempting to
hold a peaceful prayer
meeting on March 11. Morgan Tsvangirai, head of the
Movement for Democratic
Change, emerged from detention with a swollen eye
and a fractured skull.
Several days later, Nelson Chamisa, the movement's
spokesman, was stopped en
route to a meeting with European officials and
beaten with iron bars. Other
activists have been prevented from leaving the
country to seek medical
treatment for wounds inflicted by police.
Unrest has continued, as have
the violent crackdowns. Mugabe, stubborn and
unrepentant as ever, has vowed
to "bash" protesters and dismissed
international criticism as an imperialist
plot. Although anti-government
feelings are prompted by the regime's lack of
respect for human and
political rights, Mugabe's poor management of the
economy is also to blame.
The inflation rate, more than 1,700 percent, is
the world's highest, while
an estimated four out of five people are
unemployed. Zimbabwe, once Africa's
breadbasket, has become, under Mugabe, a
basket case.
The crisis in Zimbabwe raises familiar questions about the
responsibilities
of the international community. Some argue that the world
has no business
interfering with, or even commenting on, the internal
affairs of a sovereign
state. This principle is exceptionally convenient for
dictators and for
people who do not wish to be bothered about the well-being
of others. It is
a principle that paved the way for the rise of Hitler and
Stalin and for the
murders ordered by Idi Amin. It is a principle that, if
consistently
observed, would have shielded the apartheid government in South
Africa from
external criticism and from the economic sanctions and political
pressure
that forced it to change. It is a principle that would have
prevented racist
Rhodesia from becoming Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe from ever
coming to power.
We are not suggesting that the world should intervene to
impose political
change in Zimbabwe. We are suggesting that global and
regional organizations
and individual governments should make known their
support for human rights
and democratic practices in that country, as
elsewhere. We should condemn in
the strongest terms the use of violence to
prevent the free and peaceful
expression of political thought. We should
make clear our support for the
standards enshrined in the African Charter on
Human and Peoples' Rights and
in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Given Mugabe's consistent
unwillingness to respect the legitimate complaints
of his people, this is
not the time for silent diplomacy. This is the time
to speak out. It is
especially important that members of the African Union
and Southern African
Development Community (SADC) raise their voices, for
they have the most
influence and can hardly be accused of interventionism.
As the examples of
Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela remind
us, it is never
inappropriate to speak on behalf of justice.
As in
South Africa, the solution to the economic, political and social
quagmire in
Zimbabwe is open dialogue -- perhaps facilitated by the SADC --
that
includes all relevant parties and leads to an understanding based on
support
for democracy and respect for the legitimate rights of all. To this
end, the
government of Zimbabwe should cease its abusive practices, repeal
draconian
laws and bring the electoral code into line with regional and
international
standards.
Presidential and parliamentary elections that are transparent
and considered
to be legitimate by the people of Zimbabwe and by local and
international
observers should be held. Should Mugabe decide to run for
president again,
as he has said he might, the world will have to make an
effort to ensure
that balloting is fair. However, Mugabe's own party, which
includes
responsible and moderate elements, might well consider whether the
time has
come for a new leader.
With crisis comes opportunity. This
is the moment for political and civic
leaders in Zimbabwe to unify around a
common goal: a peaceful and democratic
transition. Members of the opposition
would be well advised to overcome
their differences and to speak with a
single, strong voice. In this way,
reformers can demonstrate to the people
of Zimbabwe and to the world that
there is a viable and patriotic
alternative to the repressive and misguided
leadership under which the
country has suffered for so long.
Desmond Tutu, who won the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1984, was archbishop of Cape
Town from 1986 to 1996 and headed
South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation
Commission. Madeleine Albright, who
served as secretary of state under
President Bill Clinton, is principal of
the Albright Group LLC and chairman
of the National Democratic Institute for
International Affairs.
Business Day
29 March 2007
Katie
Nguyen
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reuters
DAR
ES SALAAM - African leaders meeting in Tanzania yesterday to discuss
Zimbabwe's political crisis were not expected to bow to pressure to censure
President Robert Mugabe's police crackdown.
The 14-nation Southern
African Development Community (SADC) summit, hosted
by Tanzanian President
Jakaya Kikwete, comes amid a growing global outcry
over turmoil in Zimbabwe,
which threatens to spill over to its neighbours.
It also takes place
after clashes last week in the Democratic Republic of
Congo, between the
military and militia loyal to former vice-president and
rebel chief
Jean-Pierre Bemba, that claimed between 200 and 500 lives.
Mugabe arrived
in Tanzania late yesterday to brief the SADC, gathered for
the first time
since his government suppressed a rally on March 11, when
police beat scores
and held some of his opponents. Mugabe was at a Zanu (PF)
politburo meeting
earlier in the day.
The special two-day Tanzanian summit
will be a test for the 14-member SADC
grouping, accused in some quarters of
not flexing its political muscle
against Mugabe's
government.
Political analysts said regional leaders were unlikely to
condemn Mugabe
publicly, but the Tanzanian summit was important in focusing
world attention
on Zimbabwe's mounting crisis.
"Whatever spin the
government will try to put on this, this is an emergency
summit on Zimbabwe
and it basically means that Zimbabwe has become an issue
in Africa too,"
said Eldred Masunungure, a political science professor at
Harare's
University of Zimbabwe.
"But I don't think there is going to be the kind
of public condemnation that
some western countries are calling for, and I am
sure Mugabe will be happy
with that," he said.
Britain, pressing
for action at the United Nations, which SA has blocked,
urged African
countries to confront Mugabe after images of bruised activists
provoked
threats of more western-led economic sanctions.
If carried out, some fear
sanctions would inflict more pain on ordinary
Zimbabweans already grappling
with an economy shrinking faster than any
other outside a war zone.
International leaders are looking for strong
measures from the SADC to rein
in Zimbabwe's delinquent government.
Political analysts say the country's
deepening recession threatens to
destabilise the region as millions flee the
world's highest inflation rate
of 1700%, a jobless rate above 80% and food
shortages.
Southern African countries have largely adopted a quiet
approach to the
Zimbabwe crisis. The SADC and SA say it is the only way to
address the
crisis, and that the west's megaphone diplomacy will further
antagonise
Mugabe. Regional heavyweight SA, straining to accommodate
millions of
Zimbabwe's economic refugees, has said "constructive diplomacy"
is the only
way to keep dialogue open with Mugabe.
President Thabo
Mbeki was due in Tanzania to join the talks.
Zambia broke ranks last
week. President Levy Mwanawasa compared his
neighbour with a "sinking
Titanic" and said the SADC might be ready to act.
Mugabe has remained
defiant amid the turmoil, repeating charges that the MDC
are western stooges
bent on toppling him.
Recent fighting in Congo was also on the
agenda.
Congolese President Joseph Kabila, who had not been expected to
attend the
summit, left for the meeting accompanied by Foreign Affairs
Minister Antipas
Mbusa Nyamwisi.
As leaders converged on the
Tanzanian capital, it was reported from Zimbabwe
that police had sealed off
the Harare headquarters of the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangiria was arrested
with several of his colleagues and
taken into custody. Police denied he was
in custody.
He and fellow
MDC supporters were arrested at a prayer meeting more than two
weeks ago,
detained overnight and beaten by police. Mugabe endorsed the
beatings, and
told international critics to "go hang". Mugabe also said it
would happen
again.
New York Times
By
MICHAEL WINES
Published: March 29, 2007
JOHANNESBURG, March 28 - Hundreds
of Zimbabwean political and civic
advocates have been abducted and severely
beaten in recent days by
unidentified assailants, government critics said
Wednesday, in dead-of-night
assaults that appear to be part of a new
government campaign to smother
rising unrest.
The attacks came to
light on Wednesday after hundreds of police officers
raided the Harare
headquarters of Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the
Movement for
Democratic Change, and detained its best-known leader, Morgan
Tsvangirai,
and about 20 members. Party officials said the police ransacked
the offices,
destroying furniture and taking stacks of documents. Lawyers
for some
advocates said they had been warned not to go to the central police
station
in Harare, the capital, in search of their clients because of the
threat of
violence against the lawyers. The government has repeatedly denied
any
systematic repression of opposition members, saying it has acted solely
to
root out crimes.
A police spokesman said Wednesday that the officers were
searching the
opposition party's offices for firebombs. Zimbabwe's news
media have been
filled in recent days with reports of firebomb attacks on
police stations,
trains and stores, all of which the government has
attributed to the
Movement for Democratic Change.
The opposition
party has called the firebombing reports lies, planted in the
state-controlled news media to discredit critics.
Zimbabwe's
government was broadly criticized after the police arrested and
beat Mr.
Tsvangirai and scores of other political and civic advocates two
weeks ago,
after they sought to hold what they described as a prayer meeting
in
Harare.
"The government of Zimbabwe has intensified its brutal
suppression of its
own citizens in an effort to crush all forms of dissent,"
Georgette Gagnon,
deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said
Wednesday, referring to
the events of recent weeks. Since those arrests,
tensions have been high
throughout Zimbabwe, especially in the poor urban
neighborhoods that are
centers of government opposition.
Some
political specialists in Harare said that the abductions and beatings
in
recent days might signal a new and crucial phase in Zimbabwe's economic
and
political crises, now more than six years old.
The national economy is
all but dysfunctional, with inflation exceeding
1,700 percent a year and
rapidly increasing. Eight in 10 people are jobless,
and a huge share of the
10 million or so citizens survive on remittances
from the 3 million
Zimbabweans who have left the country.
President Robert G. Mugabe, the
83-year-old autocrat who has led the nation
since it ended white rule 27
years ago, is battling a reinvigorated
opposition and a growing movement in
his own party to oust him. He sought in
December to extend his legal rule by
two years, to 2010, but received an
unprecedented rebuff from members of his
party. He has since said he would
seek a full six-year term in the next
election, in 2008.
But broad elements of his party, the Zimbabwe African
National
Union-Patriotic Front, are working to thwart his ambitions. Local
and
international news agencies have reported widely that some in Mr.
Mugabe's
party are negotiating with Mr. Tsvangirai's opposition movement on
a
succession plan.
Given those power struggles, one Harare political
analyst said Wednesday, it
is unclear whether the beatings of potential
political opponents are a
governmentwide strategy or a narrower effort by
Mr. Mugabe's backers to
shore up his remaining power.
"The state is
behaving repressively on a very, very wide scale, but is the
state doing it,
or a state within a state?" the analyst said on condition of
anonymity for
fear of reprisal. "I think there's good reason to believe
there's a third
force operating here."
No one knows how many have been abducted, but
advocates in Zimbabwe said the
victims have included political organizers,
students, members of civic
groups and leaders of the Combined Harare
Residents Association, which has
organized Harare's poor neighborhoods to
press for better city services.
Nelson Chamisa, the spokesman for Mr.
Tsvangirai's faction of the Movement
for Democratic Change, said that nearly
200 party workers and advocates had
been seized in the last three days,
usually in raids on their homes after
midnight.
In almost all
documented cases, he said, the victims were taken in unmarked
vehicles to
remote locations where they were beaten, then abandoned. An
unknown number
of party members have not turned up after being kidnapped, he
said.
Among the abducted, he said, are two members of the party's
national
executive committee, one of whom was kidnapped with his wife, and a
member
of Zimbabwe's Parliament from Glenview, a poor Harare neighborhood
that is a
locus of government opposition.
Mr. Chamisa was attacked
last week at a check-in counter at Harare's airport
as he prepared to board
a flight to Europe for a political meeting. Four men
with iron bars
fractured his skull and crushed an eye socket.
"It's state terrorism," he
said.
Lovemore Madhuku, who leads Zimbabwe's largest civic group, the
National
Constitutional Assembly, said that at least 16 of his members had
been
abducted in the last week. Most have since been hospitalized, he
said.
"The strategy is that any person who seems to be active and who is
perceived
to be a mobilizer or local organizer is targeted for abduction,"
he said.
Violence against government critics has been common in the past,
particularly before elections, but the latest abductions and beatings appear
to be far more systematic and widespread.
Arrests, beatings and
abductions of civic and political figures have mounted
since the violent
breakup of the so-called prayer meeting on March 11. They
appear to have
quickened after an important group of Mr. Mugabe's
supporters, the Zimbabwe
National Liberation War Veterans Association, held
a major meeting last
weekend in Harare to plot a strategy against Mr. Mugabe's
critics, according
to advocates and a local journalist.
The veterans were members of a
guerrilla army led in part by Mr. Mugabe that
won Zimbabwe's liberation from
white rule in the 1970s. When they became
restive in the late 1990s, Mr.
Mugabe sealed their loyalty by granting them
huge cash bonuses.
The
war veterans were the muscle behind Mr. Mugabe's decision in 2000 to
seize
the nation's 5,000 white-owned commercial farms and redistribute them
to
political allies and landless peasants.
A Zimbabwean journalist
contributed reporting from Harare.
http://jeremythompson.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/03/inside_zimbabwe_2.html#comments
Wednesday
More people die in Zimbabwe every day than in
Darfur or Iraq, but we are
dying silently and the world doesn't seem to know
how bad it really is.
Zimbabwe's HIV/AIDs statistics are among the
highest in the world and this
terrible pandemic, combined with a lack of
drugs in our country, corruption
by government ministers, food shortages and
1,800% inflation, makes it a
swift killer in our society.
Life
expectancy in Zimbabwe is 34 years for women and 37 years for men.
I
would really like you to think about that for a moment. How old are you?
How
much longer would that leave you to live or have you already exceeded
our
life expectancy?
Attending funerals is a regular occurrence in
Zimbabwe.
I know many people who have died over the last few
years.
Last year two of my work colleagues died within the space of a
couple of
months of each other. I go to funerals, I experience the awfulness
of
funerals, and then I come home.
But even though this is 'normal',
I am sometimes woken up and stunned by
something, and I am left horrified
and shocked and very sensitive to how
extreme life is in
Zimbabwe.
For example, a couple of days ago I attended a child's funeral.
This is hard
enough as it is, but through my tears I noticed how many
freshly dug graves
there were in the children's section of the cemetery,
clear evidence that
lots of children are dying.
Even worse, this is a
new cemetery and it's already almost full.
I saw two women digging a
child-sized grave on their own, and I was told
that this was because they
could not afford to pay a gravedigger to do it
for them.
I was told
they were alone because their men were probably out of the
country working
in South Africa.
The painful reality of what I saw in that place was
emphasised by our
Zimbabwean tradition of leaving some of the possessions
belonging to the
person who has died on the grave.
For children this
means I was looking at a scene of small graves with
bottles, toys, baby
baths and other plastic pieces of childhood treasures
piled on them. It is
wrong, very very wrong, to see these sort of things.
I felt overcome with
grief and anger at what I saw. It is like being trapped
inside a horror film
- a truly terrible thing to see.
I want to bring a chair to this section
of the graveyard, and make Robert
Mugabe sit in it for a day.
I want
him to sit there for hours looking at the graves and the toys. I want
the
message of what this means to wash over him, for him to know he's
destroying
our country's future.
He is stripping the joy from parents' lives, and he
is creating a legacy
where he will be remembered for many years as the man
who inflicted misery
and pain and suffering on a nation.
Most of all,
I want him to step out from the security of his Mercedes Benz
and his
soldier patrolled mansions, and I want him to stand here in the
blazing sun
in that dusty graveyard surrounded by bright plastic toys that
testify to
the lives of children and babies.
I want him to talk to the parents, to
be forced to explain to them - face to
face - why he is doing nothing to
help them save their children's lives.
Sometimes I can go through a day
and just live my life like everyone has
to - that's surviving - one step at
a time. Then there are days like that
one, where I am consumed with rage and
grief and pure frustration. I am
still furious and torn-up two days later,
and it makes me very ready to
march for change and to defy this
regime.
Hope, a Sokwanele
activist
---------
Comments
watch out bob the end is near who
ever thought of Banda Kamuzu king of
african juju will leave the presidence
seat.One word to bob YOUR FATHER IS
FOR LIFE NOT YOUR MASTER, KING OR
PRESIDENT
Posted by: magodzongere 28 Mar 2007 03:12:15
If Mugabe's
daughter is studying in the U.K Surely some of the group of
people that
organise the Zimvigil over there can start activating direct
demonstrations
at her feet and hassle her on a day to day basis until she
also has to leave
the u.k-how can we permit Mugabe the smallest of victories
i.e. being
educated in the country he despises-throw her out now....!!!
Posted by:
mark,brisbane ,australia 28 Mar 2007 07:05:26
I think we are all living
on a knife edge at the moment. It is very
difficult to survive from one week
to the next, not knowing whether you'll
have enough money to see you through
the month. Each day, prices have
escalated. What you bought last week to
top-up your grocery cupboard, you
can't afford this week so you go without.
Even the poor quality bread that
is available is hardly fit for human
consumption, but we buy it anyway - it
fills your belly.
Happy faces,
children laughing, seem to be a thing of the past now. When
will all this
dispair, frustration and hardship end?
It is impossible to plan your evening
as power cuts interrupt whatever
you've planned. Candles are very expensive
and paraffin is more expensive
than petrol, when you can find it, or, if you
can afford it. Yes, things are
hard here, a challenge awaits us each and
every day. Some people are
fortunate that relatives in South Africa send
food parcels or foreign
currency, which can be exchanged on the black market
to enable them to
subsidise their meagre incomes - the others, which I think
applies to the
majority of us, just have to try to survive on what little we
have.
All we want is peace, a few dollars in our pocket, a full belly, and be
able
to live normal lives. I wonder how many of us living here, under these
tense
conditions, really know what 'normal' really is??
Posted by:
priyazim, bulawayo 28 Mar 2007 07:44:54
i send a letter to the Queen and
SKy news. telling them alot of what is
happening in my country - zimbabwe-
but i asked them why they don't help. i
got no reply proving that noone
wants to know. if iraq can have help why
cant we? how can people just turn a
blind eye to this? it is diffecult to
help us but there is no harm in
trying.
Posted by: kylie uk 28 Mar 2007 10:47:29
WITH NEW
VENOM
Brainwashed bands of Youth Brigade clones
Have been given
Bob's carte blanche
To break wills or heads and backbones
In a bid to
protest staunch
Staunch supporters of MDC
Or allied
institutions
Are being picked up quietly
For savage
retributions
Enabled by feared CIO
And cadres of Armed Forces
Bob
seeks to bring the final blow
With iron bars or scourges
Hit squads in
unmarked vehicles
With license though unlicensed
May risk brief public
spectacles
Where captives are not sentenced
High Courts attempting to
hamstring
Their blatant violations
Held in contempt are
issuing
Toothless adjudications
Intimidation is widespread
Revenge
is running rampant
But opposition is not dead
Against Zim's slimy
serpent
Whose fangs may never be Yanked out
Or broken by the
British
But Zim may yet put him to rout
And Politburo banish
Though
wheels of justice slowly turn
They may grind him to powder
And blow him to
his final burn
Subtracting one more adder
© duaneudd.com
20th
Mar 2007
Posted by: Duane W. Udd .... United States after 22 years in
Zimbabwe 28 Mar
2007 11:28:48
"Man's inhumanity to Man"
I
heard my dad say this over 40 years ago and thought he was refering to
World
War 2...
When are those in Power & Control going to wake up and deal
with Mugabe, his
henchmen and other profiteers from this horrific
exploitation of people
????????
Posted by: Amanda Cumbria 28 Mar 2007
12:26:04
How many people must Mugabe have murdered? How many people must
Mugabe have
arrested?
How many people have to die due to startvation
before the people who are
responsible for putting him in power and keeping
him in power remove him or
have him bumped off of the face of the planet? It
is up to Zimbabweans
themselves, theyvoted for him not once but many times,
they gave him the
strength, the position of power that he now refuses to let
go of and no-one
else!
Now Mr Tsvangarai is once again in a cell,
probably being tortured again, on
the direct orders of Mugabe no doubt and
if he, Morgan Tsvangarai, dies who
is going to be willing to stand up and
fill his shoes? Someone needs to take
a gun or a grenade or a missile and
get rid of Mugabe NOW!
Posted by: Robin - Windhoek, Namibia 28 Mar 2007
12:39:36
The British press are constantly writing about how bad Zimbabwe
is, yet in
the newspaper one reads about British 'TOURISTS' being killed by
an elephant
whilst at a game park.
Question: if the Brits are so
against this regime why are they supporting
the economy, which is not
funnelling funds down to its people? Stop
holidaying there and help cripple
this dangerous government.
Posted by: topplehim London 28 Mar 2007
13:18:26
To Hope, a sister in struggle. My heart cries with yours. I know
our country
will be free one day and I know that the evil will be exposed
and mugbes
closest allies will hang their heads in shame when they realise
the kind of
person they have been propping up. I wish I was at home to march
with you
and stand with you. I am only here because my family cannot live
without the
money I send home to them. I pray for you and all our leaders
fighting this
regime. I will tell everyone I know to come and read
this.
Posted by: Nokthula, Zimbabwean in London 28 Mar 2007
13:30:08
My fellow Zimbabweans, the time is now! For how long shall we
wait and cry
for others to help us? No more whining. Let's start ourselves.
This is our
struggle. It's time to act and the time is now!
Posted
by: Francisca 28 Mar 2007 14:27:19
Independent, UK
By Daniel Howden in Harare
Published: 29 March
2007
Robert Mugabe was fighting for his political rights last night as he
launched mass arrests of opposition leaders at home and flew to Tanzania for
a showdown with regional leaders.
Morgan Tsvangirai, the main
opposition leader, was arrested along with two
dozen colleagues at a press
conference called to highlight the epidemic of
abductions and punishment
beatings in recent days. Hundreds of opposition
Movement for Democratic
Change activists have been taken to hospital in what
has become a daily
ritual of illegal state-sponsored violence.
As the crackdown continued,
Mr Mugabe arrived in Dar Es Salaam for a meeting
of the 12-nation Southern
African Development Committee, with his own future
the only item on the
agenda.
The 83-year-old President has come under mounting pressure from
the
international community, the opposition and increasing numbers within
his
own ruling party to step aside. Diplomats were hopeful that SADC members
would push Mr Mugabe to accept an exit package and make way for an interim
government. But his greatest threat comes at home, where members of the
Zanu-PF Polit Buro openly discussed yesterday whether to ditch the
octogenarian and put forth another candidate for next year's presidential
election.
As he was leaving the country, Mr Mugabe's police sealed
off two main
streets in central Harare and stormed the headquarters of the
MDC on Harvest
Road. Armed police in riot gear detained more than two dozen
people,
including Mr Tsvangirai and a number of his senior aides. At time of
going
to press last night, only the MDC leader had been released. More than
20
others were still being detained.
Lawyers for the opposition said
they did not know where they were being
detained or when they would be
released.
Mr Tsvangirai had called the news conference to detail the
increasingly
brutal intimidation of his party. Seven leading officials from
the MDC were
picked up at gunpoint on Tuesday night and yesterday morning,
and only one
of them has so far been found. Last Maengahama, a shadow deputy
minister,
was seized by plain-clothed assailants, severely beaten and dumped
at a
location 30 miles outside the capital.
The government has denied
involvement in the punishment beatings, but The
Independent has seen
evidence that the attacks are being led by members of
Mr Mugabe's own
Zanu-PF militia, using unmarked cars and police-issue
firearms.
The
nightly beatings have brought a reign of terror to the capital and
caused
chaos among opposition cadres, many of whom are now in hospital or in
hiding. One senior MDC source, who declined to be named, said: "This is the
worst violence that we have seen since the land invasions in 2000. But this
brutality is typical of the way that this regime has always
worked.
"Anger is rising among millions of the most impoverished
Zimbabweans that
live in the crowded townships surrounding Harare. Police
are engaged in
nightly skirmishes with youths who have been building
barricades and burning
tyres. The situation has become sufficiently volatile
that critics of the
government now fear that violent clashes with the regime
are becoming
inevitable.''
The intensifying crackdown has come as
economic collapse has left 85 per
cent of the country in poverty and pushed
Zimbabweans' life expectancy to
the lowest in the world. Even Mr Mugabe's
long-standing allies in the ruling
party now want him sidelined as their own
fortunes - collected through
corruption and patronage - are
threatened.
Speaking after his release, Mr Tsvangirai signalled that he
was not
determined to see Mr Mugabe humiliated: "We don't hate Mugabe, we
think he
needs psychiatric help. We're not talking about overthrowing the
government,
we have a constitutional right to democracy in this country and
we can
dignify an old man that has lost his mind.''
Hyper-inflation
has seen the exchange rate from US$1 to a Zimbabwe dollar
soar from 1,500 to
26,000 in under three years. If Mr Mugabe withstands SADC
criticism and
ploughs on, as he has indicated, he faces a possible palace
coup as early as
tomorrow.
The former army chief Solomon Mujuru and his wife, the
Vice-President, Joyce
Mujuru, are leading what is thought to be the
strongest faction opposing
him. The Vice-President was in South Africa this
week in an effort, it is
thought, to drum-up support for a Mujuru
takeover.
Her husband is among Zimbabwe's wealthiest businessmen and the
couple lived
until recently on an illegally seized farm outside Harare.
While it is
reported that they no longer live together, the intensely
private husband
prefers to have his wife play the more public
role.
The economic collapse has threatened Mr Mujuru's business
interests, and his
investments in the UK have caused a fallout with Mr
Mugabe. Mr Mujuru is
known to have made soundings with foreign investors in
the country, as well
as with Western diplomats who are eager to lift
sanctions against Zimbabwe
and displace Mr Mugabe.
Emmerson Mnangagwa
leads the other Zanu-PF faction, and the former security
chief has been a
bitter rival of Mr Mujuru's. Their power struggle may
enable the wily Mr
Mugabe to persuade his party to keep him on for another
election next year.
He remains determined to "harmonise'' presidential and
parliamentary
elections, knowing his chances of winning depend on forcing
the party to
campaign with him.
The regime's victims
'M' Aged 30
Lying
in her hospital she has a series of lesions on her legs and massive
bruising. She has a heart-shaped wound revealing the bone on her right shin
which will require a major skin graft.
"I was with Morgan at the
prayer meeting (11 March) when the police took us.
They took us to the
police station where they beat my leg. There were six of
them who beat me
with their baton sticks. It went on for about an hour. They
said 'you are
Tony Blair's people'. There was a lot of pain. We were made to
lie on our
bellies while they beat [me] all over my body. Then I was locked
up for two
days. That night they were given 100,000 Zim dollars each for
beating
us."
'G' Aged 32
G has two pieces of green cloth covering the
worst of his injuries. One of
them covers a deep wound encircling his toe
where bone shows through. The
other covers his elbow and forearm where heavy
blows have left a large
lesion.
"It was 8pm and I was going home when
I met these police with dogs. Some of
them came at me and started beating me
on the calves until they knocked me
to the ground. This dog came and bit me
on the foot and the knee. I had
another dog, an Alsatian, right next to my
face, and I thought it would bite
me on the neck. I passed out and when I
awoke the dog was eating my foot...
the handler said to me 'run away'. But I
said to her how can I with this
foot?"
Canberra Times
Thursday, 29 March 2007
Greg Mills
AS TENSIONS rise in
Zimbabwe, what are the reasons behind the
violence, and what might be the
likely solutions?
The country's status as the world's fastest
shrinking economy is due
to politics.
With inflation
touching 2000 per cent, one-third of the country abroad
and half the
country's 11million people dependent on food aid, President
Robert Mugabe's
land redistribution policies have virtually destroyed the
agriculture
sector. Once the mainstay of the economy and employment,
agriculture output
is now less than half of its late-1990s' peak, and
tobacco, the main export
crop, just one-fifth.
Today HIV/AIDS afflicts 18 per cent of the
population, unemployment is
more than 70per cent, the fiscal deficit an
unsustainable 60 per cent of
GDP, and life expectancy is down to 36
years.
The change in the country's land policy was a profoundly
political
act, motivated by the growing unpopularity of the country's
octogenarian
leader. Zimbabwe's 4000 white farmers were easy prey in a
country where the
politics of Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party are defined by
the 20-year
liberation war against white rule.
Conversely,
if you can fix the politics, one should be able to fix the
economy. How to
do that is not easy in a country which Mugabe has ruled with
an iron fist if
with a democratic facade since independence from Britain in
1980.
Three models of reform and recovery are
possible.
A reformed ZANU-PF with more internationally
acceptable leadership and
policies is preferred by those in the southern
African region for whom the
unravelling of the ruling party resonates
uncomfortably with their own
situation. Along with Mugabe's iconic
liberation hero status this helps to
explain why the region has been so
reluctant to intervene and slow even to
publicly condemn Mugabe's
actions.
Another option is to engineer an interim coalition
government with the
Opposition, Movement for Democratic Change. Given its
scent of victory it is
unclear whether the MDC would accept this. But
removal of Mugabe from the
political centre stage would make this more
likely and palatable. This may
be a precursor to the third option, to hold
democratic and free elections as
soon as possible, thereby undoing Mugabe's
shameless vote-rigging in earlier
polls.
Either way,
economic recovery will demand a degree of multi-party
consensus and
cooperation unseen since the partnership between the
Shona-dominated ZANU
and Ndebele-controlled ZAPU led by Joshua Nkomo.
In combination
with South African pressure and British-led diplomacy
this alliance brought
about the fall of Ian Smith's white regime. It
faltered in the 1980s when
Mugabe cracked down on opposition in
Matabeleland.
The
notorious North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade killed an estimated
20,000
ethnic Matabele in quashing resistance to his rule, explaining why
the MDC
draws much support from that area to the west of the country.
Any economic recovery strategy would, in turn, have three basic
components:
sorting out the agriculture mess created by Mugabe's policies,
providing for
the disgruntled and highly politicised war veterans who have
led the land
grab, and addressing human security and rights.
Given its scale
and complexity, the crisis in Zimbabwe is not going to
be resolved quickly
or easily.
International experience suggests the period of recovery
is inevitably
as long as that of decline.
But there is an
imperative to start now, to improve the daily struggle
of Zimbabweans by
stabilising the economy and reducing political tensions.
Medium- to
longer-term steps will have to address land and economic
policies.
External assistance is viewed as the key to staving
off further
economic collapse and, ultimately, recovery. Yet international
aid has a
poor record in this regard, often proving a Band-Aid incapable of
forging
domestic consensus on dealing with underlying problems.
Usefully, planning should start on aspects such as monetary
stabilisation
and the re-establishment of a functioning state system,
including baseline
performance in education, policing and health.
There is only so
much that can be done by the international community
for Zimbabwe in undoing
Mugabe's criminal legacy. The tough message is that
this lies largely in
their hands, today and in the future.
Dr Mills heads the
Johannesburg-based Brenthurst Foundation dedicated
to strengthening African
economic performance.
Los Angeles Times
By Robyn Dixon,
Times Staff Writer
6:43 PM PDT, March 28, 2007
HARARE, Zimbabwe --
Everything you'd expect to find in the office of a
senior official in
Zimbabwe's ruling party was there: the dominating
portrait of President
Robert Mugabe; the yellowing photos of liberation
martyrs and heroes. The
only discordant note was in the words of the
official
himself.
"People loved Mugabe. We loved Mugabe."
Past
tense.
"We need to look for someone else," the official continued, adding
that many
in the ruling ZANU-PF party agree with him that it's time for the
Old Man to
go.
Just months ago, a conversation like this,
particularly with a foreign
journalist, would have been unthinkable. But
Mugabe, 83, is losing powerful
factions in his own party and the
increasingly disaffected army, police and
security forces.
The only
leader Zimbabwe has known since the end of white minority rule in
1979, he
has ruled with fear and patronage. Those who fell out of favor were
fired,
beaten or killed, and secret police kept careful watch on perceived
enemies.
For much of that time, however, Zimbabwe also was among the most
prosperous
countries in Africa.
Mugabe started seizing land from white commercial
farmers in 2000, and much
of it ended up in the hands of political cronies.
The move paralyzed
Zimbabwe's most successful economic sector and biggest
employer. Now, he
presides over a country with an official inflation rate of
1,730 percent,
the world's highest; and life expectancy that the World
Health Organization
estimates at only 36 years. Unemployment is about 80
percent. Grass grows
high along potholed highways; few people can afford a
bus fare, let alone
gas. They gather in large groups, waiting for a lift.
When a truck stops,
they swarm it.
The political opposition is once
more trying to mount a challenge. Morgan
Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement
for Democratic Change and other
opposition leaders were arrested Wednesday,
a little more than two weeks
after Tsvangirai was arrested, beaten and then
hospitalized.
Even as he cracks down on the opposition, Mugabe's support
among his core
backers has evaporated as hyperinflation eats into the
business interests of
ruling party heavyweights and gobbles police and army
wages, causing mass
desertions and resignations.
"The internal
problems we have got are much larger than the problems created
by the MDC,"
said the party official. "I don't think that even the president
worries
about the MDC. He's much more worried about what is happening in his
own
party."
The official's willingness to talk, even anonymously for fear of
political
reprisal, is a sign of the splits in ZANU-PF and the difficulties
Mugabe
faces overcoming party opposition to his plans to run for president
again
next year. Internal party opposition has already forced him to abandon
a bid
to extend his term to 2010.
African leaders, normally mute
about Zimbabwe's human rights abuses and
economic collapse, also have grown
more alarmed since Tsvangirai and dozens
of other activists were arrested
and beaten up in Harare on March 11. About
100 activists have been
hospitalized since then. Many of them were abducted
from their homes and
severely beaten, often with iron bars.
On Wednesday, at least nine other
opposition leaders were arrested
overnight, according to opposition
spokesman Eliphas Mukonoweshuro.
Tsvangirai was released unharmed several
hours later.
The opposition is demanding a new constitution leading to
free and fair
elections next year and is reportedly willing to offer Mugabe
immunity from
prosecution. Without reform, it has threatened to boycott next
year's
election.
Leaders of the South African Development Community,
a regional group, will
hold an emergency meeting in Tanzania on Thursday at
which they are expected
to press Mugabe to spell out plans to retire and
ensure an orderly
transition.
The small ruling party clique which
still supports Mugabe argues that
ZANU-PF will collapse in chaos if he
goes.
Jonathan Moyo, a former information minister sacked for disloyalty
in 2004,
said Mugabe is facing open rebellion from two important party
factions
representing Vice President Joyce Mujuru, who is married to the
powerful
former army chief, Solomon Mujuru, and the former parliamentary
speaker,
Emmerson Mnangagwa.
South Africa, the regional power, has
been talking to the opposition and
ruling party figures including Mujuru in
an effort to ease tensions that it
sees as a growing threat to all of
southern Africa.
But Moyo predicted in a telephone interview that Mugabe
would stage a
desperate last stand to hold onto power until his
death.
"The likelihood of him wanting to fight to the bitter end is very
high. But
there's growing fear within ZANU-PF that if he stands for
election, the
ruling party will lose big time. We joke that even a baboon
could beat him
now," said Moyo. "But he's very stubborn. He somehow believes
that he's
still very popular."
Many citizens still are too afraid to
speak out. Simuwe Mwenzi, a
64-year-old widow who lives in a poor
neighborhood of Bulawayo, said she is
losing the battle to stay ahead of
inflation and feed three grandchildren.
Yet she won't say whom she blames
for her hardships. She trusts no one,
including the woman she has taken in
as a boarder.
"She's a spy," Mwenzi hissed. "They could come and arrest
me."
"There is a lot inside me, but I can't say anything because I'm
afraid."
But fear is starting to lose its hold over security
forces.
There is anger in the police and army over low salaries and the
fast-track
promotions of ZANU-PF loyalists and veterans of the guerrilla war
to end
white rule, according to seven current and former members of
Zimbabwe's
police and army interviewed by the Los Angeles Times in Harare,
Bulawayo and
Johannesburg, South Africa.
"Morale is down. Everyone's
frustrated over the conditions," said a Bulawayo
detective sergeant whose
salary of 200,000 Zimbabwe was worth about $10 a
month at last week's black
market rate but was sliding to about $6 by the
middle of this week. His
entire salary equals the cost of bus fare to get to
work. "There are a lot
of people who support the opposition. Everyone just
wants something to
happen. They just want things to change.
"I think the major thing people
are angry about is the president himself.
They say he is past his prime and
he should leave."
He was willing to be identified because of fear of
reprisals.
The high-ranking party official said the economy collapsed
because Mugabe
failed to curb corruption. But he said there was no clear
candidate to
succeed. He said he could accept someone who was less capable
than Mugabe,
but at least willing to listen.
"I look at everyone and
I see damn fools, including the opposition. Our
future is blank, and that's
a very sad situation."
VOA
By Peter
Clottey
Washington,D.C.
29 March 2007
Police in
Zimbabwe Wednesday raided the headquarters of opposition leader
Morgan
Tsvangirai and arrested a dozen party leaders. Party officials said
Tsvangirai was among those detained, but police denied the charge. The
arrest of the opposition movement for democratic change (MDC) activists
followed an organized news conference Wednesday by the MDC to protest what
the opposition described as the recent increase in abduction and torture of
party executives.
Tendai Biti is the general secretary of the MDC. He
said the police thwarted
the MDC's scheduled news conference.
"We
were supposed to have a press conference, and the press conference was
going
to deal with the continuing abductions of our members. And only
yesterday
afternoon, after the memorial service of the late Gift Tandare,
the activist
who was murdered by Mugabe on March 11, 2007, during the prayer
meeting.
they abducted a close friend of mine and a member of our national
executive.
He was left in only briefs, tortured and left for dead," Biti
said.
Biti reflected on Wednesday's disappearance of some of the
party executives.
"As I speak to you now, I can't tell you where
Honorable Poma Dzuri, our
member of parliament for Glens View is. I can't
tell you where Emmanuel
Tisuwere, our member of parliament for Budereero
is. At first we thought
that there were only 20 that were arrested, but now
I found out that it was
65 people and most importantly, I don't know where
Morgan Tsvangirai is," he
noted.
Biti said the police did not give
any reasons for the arrest.
"No they didn't give any reason. They never
give reasons; even when we were
arrested and beaten up on the eleventh of
March we were not given any
reason, so the dictator will not give you any
reason," he pointed out.
Biti speculated on the reasons behind the police
crackdown.
"I suspect there were three main reasons behind the arrests;
first was to
prevent our press conference. Secondly, I think they are
desperate to
de-legitimize us. So they have been running on this story about
petrol bombs
and so forth, so I think they wanted to plant some evidence
connected to
that. And thirdly, I think they wanted an excuse to take away
our computers,
which would destabilize us, which is in effect what they have
done," he
pointed out.
Biti said the MDC is concerned with finding
the whereabouts of what he
called the abducted party executives.
"At
the present moment we are just concerned with the whereabouts of Morgan
Tsvangirai and the rest of the people they have arrested. We are trying
desperately to get them out tonight," he said.
Although there have
been reports of the party's leader being freed, Biti
says he has yet to know
where Tsvangirai is.
"I've spoken to a journalist who has actually said
he has spoken to him. But
the point I'm making is that I have been to
Tsvangirai's house and he was
not there," he said.
Biti explains what
the MDC is going to do about its members who have been
arrested.
"The
immediate thing right now is to get those people out of prison, feed
them,
and give them access to lawyers. Then the second thing is to look for
the
people who have been abducted. We don't know where they are. At least
for
those who were arrested by the police, we know they are in police
custody.
But we are concerned about those who have been abducted, like our
Members of
Parliament," he said.
The Zimbabwean
HARARE - South
Africa summoned Zimbabwe's Vice President Joice Mujuru on
Friday to protest
about violent attacks on the opposition and President
Robert Mugabe's
lawless repression amid reports the octogenarian's
leadership of Zanu (PF)
has been identified as the key stumbling block to
resolving the deepening
social and political crisis.
Mujuru met with South Africa's Deputy President
Phumzile Mlambo-Ncguka at a
Johannesburg hotel last Friday for "private
talks." She was accompanied by
her husband, General Solomon Mujuru, also
known as Rex Nhongo, a former army
commander, and leading member of Mugabe's
guerrilla forces during the
independence war. The couple lead a ruling party
faction vying to succeed
Mugabe.
Diplomatic sources said it emerged from
the meeting that Mugabe, whose
popularity in his own party has waned rapidly
in recent weeks, had shot down
suggestions from his lieutenants for a
graceful departure from politics and
an amnesty for crimes he committed
during his violent 27-year-rule.
In the light of that information, the South
African government reportedly
indicated it had adopted an approach focusing
on a post-Mugabe scenario in
Zimbabwe - not necessarily a post-Zanu (PF)
one.
The South African government also asked Mujuru to influence her
"Zimbabwean
counterparts" into drafting a new Constitution and to hastily
address issues
affecting the country by engaging the
opposition.
Mlambo-Ngcuka was briefed about the Central Committee meeting
today
(Thursday), which is expected to endorse Mugabe's candidacy for the
2008
Presidential elections.
The South African government and President
Thabo Mbeki have come under heavy
criticism from several members of the
world community for not condemning
Mugabe's despotic regime. The clampdown
on the press, the opposition and the
deterioration of the rule of law were
pointed out as the most important
factors adversely affecting the economic
crisis in Zimbabwe.
The concerns were heightened last week when Mugabe openly
supported the
ruthless clampdown on the opposition and the violent
suppression of peaceful
political activity. Mugabe told a meeting of the
ruling Zanu (PF)'s Women's
League on Friday that the continued defiance
campaign by the opposition,
civic and church groups would be met "very
vigorously" by security forces.
"We hope they have learned a lesson. If they
have not, then they will get
similar treatment (from the police)," Mugabe
warned.
Mugabe spoke as police reported a fourth petrol bomb attack on a
police
station in Marimba Park in a month of raging unrest, blaming it on
suspected
opposition activists. However, at least one police report has been
proved to
be pure fabrication. The use of police-issue teargas canisters in
other
attacks point to the sinister hand of either the police or the CIO's
dirty
tricks department.
Earlier, reports said a train had been
petrol-bombed, prompting authorities
to put all passenger trains under
police escort.
According to diplomatic sources, Mlambo Ngcuka was told that
Mugabe was
plagued with "paranoid delusions" about attempts to oust him,
according to
South African intelligence and diplomatic sources.
The Zimbabwean
HARARE - The Reserve Bank
of Zimbabwe will soon submit new proposals on the
management of the foreign
exchange market, according to banking executives
who met central bank
officials recently.
Executives from Zimbabwe's merchant and commercial banks
met central bank
governor Gideon Gono to put forward proposals on how the
foreign exchange
market could operate under a fixed exchange rate system
that would eliminate
the thriving parallel forex market.
The executives
said the proposals called for the devaluation of the Zimbabwe
dollar,
officially pegged at Z$250 to one US dollar for the past nine
months, to at
least Z$7,500.
The US$ is currently fetching Z$22,000 on the thriving
parallel market.
They also proposed that a pool of the country's meagre
foreign currency
reserves continue to be managed by the Reserve Bank, which
makes allocations
to the business sector, utilities and the
government.
In January Gono staunchly resisted calls for devaluation saying
the move
would "bless the black market."
Bankers said recent attempts to
throttle the parallel market, where some
treasury departments were said to
be acting as facilitators, could be linked
to efforts to regulate the market
before a devaluation was announced.
"We understand that devaluation is on the
way," said one source. "He seems
to have decided that banks should comply
with the market rules because he
wants sanity in the market before the
devaluation."
Analysts said devaluation must be effected to claim restive
tobacco farmers
who are threatening to hold on to their crop amid reports
that the auction
floors are set to go full throttle on April 24.
The Zimbabwean
HARARE
MDC president Morgan
Tsvangirai will hold a landmark rally at Huruyadzo
Shopping Centre in
Chitungwiza on Saturday, hardly a week after the
authorities lifted a ban on
public rallies imposed last month.
Arthur Mutambara, leader of the other MDC
faction, declined to go ahead with
a rally planned for his group after it
became apparent that the Zanu (PF)
authorities' preferential treatment of
him was part of a well-orchestrated
ploy by the security agencies to foment
divisions and distrust within the
opposition movement.
When Mutambara and
Tsvangirai were arrested during the recent Save Zimbabwe
Coalition prayer
meeting, Tsvangirai and his colleagues sustained fractured
skulls and broken
bones.
On the contrary, Mutambara and his deputies emerged from the police
cells
unscathed, fuelling speculation that they were on Zanu (PF) payroll
with a
mandate to destabilize the MDC.
"Already some people are convinced
that he is working with them, why can't
they beat him up? Why are they
clearing his rallies and not Morgan's? Its
called The Big Lie," said a
middle-ranking intelligence operative. "A united
opposition is a huge
threat."
Mutambara stood firm and said: "It should be clear to Robert Mugabe
and his
surrogates that selective application of the law will never have any
takers
in the democratic movement," he said. "If Zanu (PF), which has no
moral
authority to do so, denies Tsvangirai the right to hold a rally,
Mutambara
will never accept to proceed with such a rally. Any injury
inflicted on one
democratic force is a clear assault on all forces."
The Zimbabwean
The MDC's Information and Publicity
Department will be regularly naming and
shaming individuals who are abetting
the Zanu PF regime in undermining the
people's rights and derailing the
train of freedom and democracy. For the
past three weeks, hit squads of
suspected CIO agents have been assaulting,
abducting and even shooting MDC
supporters in Harare, Marondera and
Chitungwiza in a vain attempt to stop
the hour of change which is now upon
us. The MDC believes that such
individuals must face trial in the new
Zimbabwe for crimes against humanity
and for prolonging the shelf-life of a
regime that is now unpopular with the
people. The following people, in their
individual capacities, are part of a
large list that we will be publishing,
of personalities who stand guilty of
various crimes such as murder,
brutality, assaults and other heinous and
criminal acts that the cornered
regime is using to suppress and oppress the
people of Zimbabwe. In the new
Zimbabwe, the wheels of justice will be
fitted back on the train of
democracy and the following individuals should
have honest answers on what
they were doing to fellow countrymen when this
nation needed men and women
of conscience; men and women who value the
sanctity of human life, human
rights and basic freedoms.
1.CIO officers
stationed at the Harare International Airport whose names are
given only as
Hwande, Mandiome and Shoko. Hwande resides in Sunningdale 2 at
House number
1520 7th close in Harare South constituency. These three are
part of an
eight man hit-squad of the Central Intelligence Organisation
officers who
brutally assaulted MDC spokesman and Kuwadzana MP Nelson
Chamisa. The
brutality was unprecedented and ranks as one of the most
barbaric by state
security agents considering that Hon Chamisa was on
national duty as he was
headed for an ACP-EU Parliamentary meeting in
Brussels, Belgium as a
representative of the Parliament of Zimbabwe. Crime
committed: Sunday, 18
March 2007
2.Gideon Gono, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor. President
Robert
Mugabe's personal banker. Born in Chivhu. A) Police officers who
brutally
assaulted MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai and senior party
officials
confirmed that Gono paid $1 million each and $100 000 food
allowances per
day to each of the merchants of death. B) Gono, through his
much-publicised
fiscal activities, provided the financial wherewithal that
enabled the
government to engage in the costly Operation Murambatsvina in
which 18
percent of Zimbabweans lost their homes. He also minted trillions,
to the
detriment of the country's inflation levels, for the government to
engage
in Operation Garikiai/Hlalani Kuhle. C) The 4x4 double-cab vehicles
he
donated to the police force after the ill-conceived Operation Sunrise are
the same vehicles that are being used by Zanu PF's hit squads who are
abducting and assaulting opposition leaders and activists in and around
Harare. Crime committed: Since May 2005
3.Chief Inspector Mukuze,
Officer-In-Charge, Matapi police station;
Constable Makina, Harare Central
Bike Unit, shift 2; Constable Kanzou,
Harare Central Operations section;
Constable Edmore Munodawafa, Matapi
police station, team 3; Constable
Munemo, Harare Central Operations section;
Sergeant Magongo, Harare Central
Operations section; Inspector Ngidhi,
Officer-In-Charge, Police Operations
Group; Assistant Inspector G. Shoko,
PRG, Harare Central shift 2; Inspector
Isaac Hove, Officer-In-Charge, Harare
Central Operations section ; Constable
Nicasio Majaya, Matapi police
station; Constable Nawu, Harare Central
operations; Constable Some, Harare
central operations; Constable Paswairi,
Matapi police station; Constable
Nkomo, Hatfield police station.
These
police officers, in their individual capacities, were responsible for
brutally assaulting ZCTU leaders Lovemore Matombo and Wellington Chibhebhe
as well as senior MDC officials such as Ms Lucia Matibenga, who is also a
ZCTU vice President, Ian Makone, MDC secretary for Elections and Toendepi
Shonhe, vice organizing secretary for Harare province and other political
and civic activists. Their crime was that they had exercised their
constitutional right for movement, assembly and expression. Crime committed:
13 September 2006
4.George Charamba, President Robert Mugabe's spokesman
and Permanent
secretary in the Ministry of Information and Publicity.
Abetting and
supporting tyranny. Vigorously defending the brutal assault of
innocent
citizens. Using uncivilized language to mock victims of Mugabe's
brutality
and ordering State Editors to parrot the whims of the dictator.
Here is one
man who has clearly overstepped his role as a civil servant to
occupy a
lofty seat on the pedestal of tyranny as Mugabe's voice and
word-smith. Like
Saddam Hussein's Comical Ali, Charamba seems determined to
rabidly support a
tyranny unto the very end; an end which is nigh. Crime
committed: Frequently
5.Chaplain Choto, a Central Intelligence Organisation
officer. Choto went to
the home of a senior member of the private funeral
parlour where Gift
Tandare's body was being kept and ordered him, at
gunpoint, to surrender the
body to him despite a High Court order that it
had to be surrendered to his
wife and other relatives who had brought the
body to the mortuary in the
first place. He was in the company of two other
unidentified CIO officers
and Saviour Kasukuwere, Mt Darwin South MP and
Zanu PF Politburo member.
Kasukuwere, a former CIO agent, is still embedded
with the dreaded spy
agency. Crime committed: Saturday, 17 March 2007
The Zimbabwean
HARARE
Over a
hundred schools in Zimbabwe are set to ground to a halt by the 1st of
April
a week earlier than the scheduled date due to unbearable economic
climate
which has left inflation a few inches to reach a 2000% mark
according to the
government's dubious Central Statistics Office.
According to a research
conducted by The Zimbabwean over hundred schools
will be closing as parents
can no longer continue affording to pay top up
fees required by these
schools after every two weeks. Most of these schools
are the ones offering
boarding facilities, as food run scarce since prices
are doubling everyday.
- Trust Matsilele
The Zimbabwean
HARARE - The Zimbabwe
Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) is ratcheting up
load shedding of
electricity, weighing down an already comatose economy
reeling under
operational problems stemming from the government's appalling
economic
mismanagement.
A new load shedding schedule will see power cuts between 6am
to 10am and
from 5pm and 8pm every day, a move likely to cripple the
operations of many
companies.
The intensified load shedding has
heightened fears of worsening job losses
in industry.
ZESA has
consistently failed to pay its foreign debts, with government
preferring to
prioritise defence spending.
The parastatal owes Eskom of South Africa and
Cahora Bassa of Mozambique
US$150 million (Z$37,5 billion at the official
exchange rate, but Z$260
trillion on the realistic and operative parallel
market), part of which
should have been paid by the end of business last
Saturday.
Captains of commerce and industry raised concerns this week about
the
intensified load shedding, saying electricity, like fuel was a critical
resource that turned the wheels of industry
In the capital weekend,
Graniteside, Msasa, Willowvale, Waterfalls,
Hatfield, Chitungwiza and
Southerton woke up without electricity, affecting
all their
operations.
The problem has been compounded by intermittent breakdowns. In
Sunningdale,
Mbare and part of Graniteside last week, residents and part of
industry had
to go for five days without electricity.
The power utility
has long called for an increase in tariffs, but
government, playing a
populist card, has staunchly refused the call. The
result has been mounting
losses for ZESA amid a crippling foreign currency
shortage. Electricity
tariffs are heavily subsidized in Zimbabwe such that a
pack of candles is
more expensive than a monthly electricity bill.
The irony is that government
continues to waste forex on endless foreign
trips where large delegations,
including dozens of intelligence officials,
accompany the increasingly
isolated Mugabe.
"Government must come up with urgent long-term solution to
the foreign
currency shortage, one of the major problems facing the nation,"
said Harare
economist Ronald Shumba. "There is an urgent need for government
to reenter
the market place."
The Zimbabwean
HARARE - Defiant
National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) chairman Dr Lovemore
Madhuku vowed
this week that civic groups in Zimbabwe were willing and able
to continue
taking on the government over a new constitution, dismissing the
ongoing
government crackdown on the democratic political opposition as
irrelevant.
Madhuku spoke as government intensified a brutal crackdown on
the
opposition.
"There is no other way except civil disobedience and mass
action to deal
with this arrogant government which is surviving on
brutality," Madhuku, who
is still in plaster for the next five weeks, told
The Zimbabwean. "We have
to keep putting pressure if we genuinely want
constitutional reform."
Madhuku said the pressure group on Tuesday
commemorated the death of NCA
Glenview chairman Gift Tandare, murdered by
police on March 11. He said
hundreds of campaigners were now expected to
spill into the streets starting
next week, demanding a new
constitution.
Madhuku said the NCA had completed brokering consultation over
a "people
friendly" constitution that it hoped to sell to government
soonest.
"The new constitution lays out a proper bill of rights, limits the
presidency, promotes freedom of expression, assembly, association and gives
women in this society equal rights," Madhuku said.
Analysts said that the
NCA could be in a position to tackle Mugabe's
government over a new
constitution.
"The NCA has to be one of the broadest-based organisations in
the country,
and if anyone is capable of putting real sustained pressure on
Mugabe its
them," a political scientist at the University of Zimbabwe told
The
Zimbabwean. Trade unionists, academics, church groups, youth
organisations,
gender activists, business people and farmers are all
represented under the
NCA ambit.
"I think things will move quite rapidly
now," he said. "The NCA wants a new
constitution in place before next year's
presidential poll, and there's
bound to be confrontation because government
are totally opposed to the NCA
and what it stands for," he added.
The Zimbabwean
HARARE - As the annual
tobacco auctions open, Zimbabwe has lost its position
in the top league of
the world's five best tobacco producers amid warnings
that the traditional
foreign exchange spinner will this year not ease
Zimbabwe's deepening
political and economic crisis.
Industry experts said foreign currency inflows
would be low during the
selling season, owing mainly to the fixed exchange
rate. Farmers have
threatened to hold on to their crop if Reserve Bank
governor Gideon Gono
refuses to devalue. Gono has thumbed his nose at the
resettled farmers,
accusing them of being "cry-babies."
Total production
output for this year is estimated at only 80-million
kilograms, an
optimistic figure considering last year only 55-million
kilograms went under
the hammer. Moreover, Agriculture minister Rugare
Gumbo has declared 2007
a drought year.
The Zimbabwe Tobacco Association says tobacco farmers are
threatened with
lack of viability due to the current exchange
rate.
Zimbabwe Tobacco Growers Association president, Julius Ngorima,
lamented
critical shortages of key inputs, logistical constraints,
bureaucratic
impediments in timely disbursement of inputs to farmers.
The
top five world tobacco exporters are now Brazil, US, India, Malawi and
China.
Since the farm invasions production has dropped from 236-million
kgs in 2000
to 55-million kgs in 2006.
The Zimbabwean
HARARE
The government has
deployed members of the Central Intelligence, Army and
National youth
militia ahead of 2008 polls as suspicions increase of
infiltration by the
opposition within the state-owned media and as a way of
intensifying its
propaganda.
A top official within the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Cooperation said
some
employees suspected of being MDC stalwarts, hence a need to increase
security within the state media.
Members from the national youth militia
are allegedly being trained to
channel state propaganda, and some are
getting in-house training at the
ruling party's mouthpiece, The Voice, as
they prepare to take over from
those believed to be MDC henchmen. Raphael
Mugabe, a nephew of the president
is said to have been employed at
ZBC.
"We really don't understand what Raphael is doing here and people are no
longer free to express themselves as one fears to be caught off guard by the
ever-increasing number of state agents at the corporation," said a
disgruntled employee. - Trust Matsilele
The Zimbabwean
In a two-page letter sent
to President Mugabe on Saturday, the war veterans
said Zimbabwe must
completely cut ties with Britain, the United States and
New Zealand because
the countries want to effect regime change in Zimbabwe.
"We would like to
boldly make it known that our relations with the West are
no longer cordial
hence we feel our embassies and ambassadors should be
withdrawn from these
countries," reads part letter, which was dropped at
Mugabe's Munhumutapa
offices.
The resolution came after a meeting of about 500 war veterans at
Zanu-PF
Harare, where they pledged to support Mugabe's bid for re-election
in 2008.
The war veterans, who were represented by former municipal officer
Joseph
Chinotimba, said the country had nothing to benefit from countries
that have
imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe and are trying to topple Mugabe
using the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
"By trying to
remove a legitimate and democratically-elected government
through violent
means, these western countries are insulting us and we do
not think we should
sit back on our laurels and watch them," said Chinotimba
in the letter dated
March 23, 2007.
Chinotimba, a Harare municipal policeman, did not participate
in Zimbabwe's
war of liberation. He was propelled to prominence by his
leading role in the
violent invasion of white-owned commercial farms in
2000.
The war veterans said they were incensed that the ambassadors were
sympathetic to members of the MDC leadership, the National
Constitutional
Assembly (NCA) and other civil society organizations, who were
severely
assaulted by the police at a Save Zimbabwe Campaign prayer meeting
a
fortnight ago.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, his spokesperson Nelson
Chamisa, NCA's
Lovemore Madhuku and others were admitted to hospital after
their brutal
assault by the police, which has been condemned
internationally.
The war veterans accused western countries of financing the
MDC, the
strongest opposition party to emerge on the political scene since
the
country's independence from Britain in 1980. "Further, these Ambassadors
were at the courts in support of the violent MDC
thugs who had brutally
attacked innocent civilians and police officers who
were rightfully carrying
out their duties," wrote the war veterans.
On Monday, United States
ambassador to Zimbabwe, Christopher Dell, walked
out of a meeting between
Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi and
Western diplomats who had
been summoned to the foreign ministry and were
threatened with expulsion if
they continue to support the opposition in the
country.
During their
meeting, the war veterans expressed fear they would be hanged
should Mugabe
lose in next year's election. To avoid that possibility, the
war veterans
pledged to do whatever possible to maintain Mugabe in power.
"Comrades, if
the President goes next year most of us here will be hanged.
If he goes down
we will go down with him. We have to campaign for him," said
Chinotimba. War
veterans have been perpetrating an orgy of violence since
the 2000 general
elections, torturing, maiming and killing supporters of the
MDC.
He said
yesterday's meeting was called to motivate war veterans in
preparation for
next year's presidential elections.
The Zimbabwean
HARARE
Government has forged ahead with plans to establish a
social contract by
deliberating with its stooge labour union, following the
refusal by the
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) to
participate.
Government efforts to negotiate with business and labour for a
social
contract, have met with apathy from major stakeholders.
The ZCTU
has been reluctant to attend the negotiations as it blames
government for
acting in bad faith and not being willing to end political
repression, while
at the same time worsening the economic crisis. Instead,
the ZCTU says it is
going ahead with plans for a "massive countrywide
strike" by workers next
week.
"There can't be a social contract when government continuously acts in
bad
faith. We are not part of the deliberations and rather plan to have a
massive countrywide strike," ZCTU secretary general, Wellington Chibhebhe
said.
The ZCTU commands the larger following within the labour circles
and has in
the past clashed with government over economic and labour
issues.
The pro-Zanu (PF) Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions this week held
meetings with government and its president Alfred Makwarimba said there were
hopes the deliberations would culminate in a social contract.
When
presenting his monetary policy statement last month, Gono had already
set a
March 1 deadline for price and salary freezes as part of the
conditions for
sorting out the economy.
However, his plans failed due to the reluctance by
key players to engage in
the deliberations.
The cornered Mugabe regime is
desperately searching for ways to appease an
increasingly disgruntled
population suffering the effects of unprecendented
hyperinflation. - Itai
Dzamara
The Zimbabwean
HARARE - A vigilante
ruling party group claiming to represent Zimbabwean
youths is to target
foreign embassies and aid agencies over alleged support
for rivals of
President Robert Mugabe, after threatening staff at the
Avenues Clinic where
opposition leaders assaulted by police were receiving
specialist
treatment.
The US and the British embassies are believed to be high on their
list of
targets.
"We will be visiting them soon to express our
displeasure and to warn them
to stop interfering with our internal matters.
Zimbabwe ndeye ropa (There
was blood shed before gaining our Independence)
... Our next target will be
to deal with them once and for all," a rag tag
middle-aged man claiming to
represent Zanu (PF) youths told a ruling party
Women's League crowd in the
capital Friday.
"Mureza wehondo wadzoka (the
liberation war flag is back)."
Diplomats in Harare say they are taking the
threat seriously. They say
ambassadors will draft a joint submission to the
government.
"We will be asking for assurances we will be accorded the
protection we are
entitled to under international treaties to which Zimbabwe
is a signatory,"
said one senior Western diplomat who asked not to be
identified. - Gift
Phiri
The Telegraph
Extract from:
Brief encounters
Last Updated:
2:03am BST 29/03/2007
David Coltart, Zimbabwe's shadow justice minister, was
in London this week
to drum up support for an EU envoy who could encourage
neighbouring
countries to push for democratic change in Zimbabwe.
Mr
Coltart, a lawyer and leading member of the Movement for Democratic
Change,
is challenging the lawfulness of constitutional changes that removed
the
right of the courts to adjudicate in land-acquisition cases, thus
undermining the right to an independent hearing.
Is there any point
in bringing a constitutional challenge that is bound to
fail?
Yes, he
says, one should not stand idly by. When tyranny ends, we shall need
to know
which judges were committed to the rule of law - and which were not.